Unitarian Universalist fawning appreciation of Mohammad and Islam

After hearing that a Salt Lake City, Utah based Unitarian Universalist congregation was going to teach a five week long course advocating the value of Mohammad and Islam to their teens, and after hearing them fawningly talk about Mohammad during a church meeting, I decided to investigate further the current status of UUism relative to Islam. I then found a prominent national UU website where they have some highly pro-Islamic pro-Mohammad statements. So yesterday I drafted a 23 page letter in response. Due to the length of the letter I’ve posted it on one of my blogs, as follows:

After hearing that a Salt Lake City, Utah based Unitarian Universalist congregation was going to teach a five week long course advocating the value of Mohammad and Islam to their teens, and after hearing them fawningly talk about Mohammad during a church meeting, I decided to investigate further the current status of UUism relative to Islam. I then found a prominent national UU website where they have some highly pro-Islamic pro-Mohammad statements. So yesterday I drafted a 23 page letter in response. Due to the length of the letter I’ve posted it on one of my blogs, as follows:

There’s liberal Christians who don’t believe in everything their Bible says to do. There’s more liberal Muslims as well in the West (America - but Saudi Arabia is trying to educate the West-hating version of Islam in Europe & the UK - but there are admittedly some more liberal Muslims in the US).

In general human morality, and the changing and progressing moral zeitgeist, ends up dictating what people consider to be moral, rather than the exacting dictates of their books.

There’s bloodthirsty stuff in both the Bible & the Quoran. I’m not a fan of either.

Yes I agree that it’s nice that people are reinterpreting their books and now claiming as the “original meaning” the liberal meaning they are actually applying to it - a meaning that discounts the more violent stuff that the books say. That’s good. The more of that that happens the better.

On the Christian end of things the Anglicans tend to be nice & liberal. The Unitarian Universalist church has Christian roots, but many members are atheist/humanist/pagan/whatever. Islam has no strong equivalence to liberal Christianity yet. Here’s hoping there’ll be more in the future.

Thank you for a very thoughtful post. My comparatively trivial addendum:

(I also attend UU, and where I live it’s largely interfaith couples, or families headed by scientists.)

It’s my opinion that without the Quran, Hadiths and adoration of Muhammed as the model human, Islam would be UU—there’s one god, who wants us to behave morally, show charity to our neighbor, and create a just society. It’s the belief that the creator of the universe wrote the eternal message to mankind using the language and culture of seventh-century Arabia that keeps it rooted in the Dark Ages.

My personal belief is that the Medinan verses of the Quran aren’t really about the same person who wrote the Meccan ones. The latter was synthesizing Arab paganism with Judeo-Christianity. Some time later, a military group conquered the Arab penninsula, and re-wrote their tales of conquest making Muhammed of Mecca the central character of them. There’s a noticeably stylistic, as well as content, difference between the Mecca and Medina verses. If the Mecca verses abrogated Medina, instead of the other way around, then we’d have a useful ethic-based faith like Judaism.

Of course, nothing will actually change until the Quran is admitted to be a human document.

As one raised UU and who’s attended services in different regions of the US it’s only fair to say that congregations vary widely. The midwestern congregation in which i grew up in the ‘60’s & ‘70’s was big on multi-faith education for children, but predominantly atheist in membership. The west coasters were practically Buddhist. By contrast, the bible belt congregation i belonged to for nine years had a strong pagan streak.

Without exception, though, every UU congregation i’ve known has leaned firmly to the political left, so i doubt that this ‘appreciation’ is anything more than an old-school, guilt driven liberal ‘patronage of the underdog’ as used to be foisted upon our unfortunate African American visitors back when i was a kid. I cringe even now when I remember. Well intentioned, but sad.

The road of excess leads to the palace of Wisedom
-William Blake, “Proverbs of Hell”

Life, what is it but a dream?
- Lewis Carroll, “A boat Beneath a Sunny Sky